Kaspersky Lab develops own OS

The Kaspersky Lab is developing its own secured operating system that will be used in industrial information systems.

HeadHunter website features two vacancies that speak of the fact that the company is developing a secured operating system.

The company is looking for a requirements analyst and senior security system designer for SCADA automated control systems.

The vacancy description says the Kaspersky Lab has been developing a new secured operating system.

Apart from regular requirements the two positions require experience in dispatch software (SCADA) and industrial protocols and control systems.

The senior designer should have programming experience with automated process control systems and SCADA, be able to work with Profibus, Modbus, OPC, DNP, Industrial Ethernet protocols and control systems, be familiar with QNX Realtime Operating System (along with Windows and Linux) and have experience in programming for data base management systems.

The position implies business trips for “examining industrial facilities”.

Most likely, Kaspersky’s new secured operating system will be a built-in system for use at industrial facilities.

There have been no statements from the Lab so far on automated process control system developments, although Eugene Kaspersky and the company experts have been mulling IT security of industrial and civil infrastructure. The vacancies are perhaps the first testimony to the Lab’s intentions to enter industrial IT-system market.

The company’s press office told CNews the company is doing a research on creating secured solutions. The research aims secured solutions in many areas, but in particular industrial information systems (automated process control systems).

Kaspersky Lab develops secured OS

The Lab has not disclosed the architecture of the operating system under development and the details of its core.

Renat Yusupov, senior vice president at Kraftway, a company that develops its own secured BIOS, believes the Kaspersky Lab came up with the idea after the incident with the Stuxnet virus that struck PCs at an Iranian uranium enrichment facility and the Flame Trojan.

He says the Lab has the necessary resources to develop and support its own built-in OS. However, would automated process control system developers be interested in using the system? This will require regulations from lawmakers.

The legal framework for production control systems at strategically important facilities is developing, he says. A week ago the Security Council spoke of the need to take certain steps for Russia not to become a hostage of globalization in the information sphere.

It is not possible to compete with foreign products in all branches of the IT sector but the most advanced Russian companies will inevitably lead to the development of adjacent branches, that is control systems, industrial PCs, and SCADA systems from Russian developers, Renat Yusupov says.

The Russian Agnitum anti-virus developer says that the Lab is most likely developing a process control operating system where security is vital.

It will probably be used in production, aviation, transport, energy, and may be used for military purposes.

The company’s Spokeswoman Lyubov Putsko says the problem is that there are no ready-made solutions in that area. “Take Windows that is trusted by many but is not enough secured, judging from the recent virus incident in Iran. QNX is a well known real-time control system. But for process virtualization Windows is used. This is probably what the Lab is working on”.

The Kaspersky Lab has the money and will be able to cover such a project, although it is a complicated and risky undertaking, Agnitum says. The news on OS development is a serious intention to diversify the company’s business. However, the OS might as well be an order.